Transcript The Greeks 500 – 300 BC

The Greeks 500 – 300 BC
• Greek City States
• Early Greek sates
called polis
• Usually built
around a
market or
fortified hill top
called an acropolis
Greek City-State Political
Structures
• Monarch - ruled by a
single person called a
king
• Aristocracy government ruled by
a small group of
noble, land owning
families
• Oligarchy government ruled by
a few wealthy and
powerful people
• Direct democracy citizens rule directly
Athens and Sparta
• Rival Greek citystates
• Athens moved
towards
Democracy or rule by
the people
• Sparta built a
military
state
Athenian
Democracy
• Draco, 621 BC, started rule by
the people with equal rights
• Solon, 549 BC, more equality
and equal participation in
Athenian Assembly
• Cleisthenes, 500 BC,
expanded the role of the
Assembly and created the
Council of Five Hundred,
whose members were chosen
by random or lot
• Pericles, 421 - 429 BC,
increased public officials and
introduced direct democracy
Athenian Education
• Sons of wealthy
families received
education
• Schooled in reading,
grammar, poetry,
history, math and
music
• Trained in logic and
public speaking
• Physical fitness also
taught and prepared
boys for the military
Greek Art
and Architecture
• Pericles wanted to glorify
Athens through Greek artists,
architects and sculptors
• Parthenon - a masterpiece of
Greek architectural design and
craftsmanship, a temple to
honor Athena, the goddess of
wisdom and the protector of
Athens
• Greek artists, especially
sculptors, created graceful,
strong and perfectly formed
works in stone
• Greek artists’ works showing
harmony, order, balance and
proportion become the
standard of what is called
classical art
Greek Drama
• Invented drama as an
art form
• Created two kinds of
drama:
• Tragedy – serious
drama about common
themes of love, hate,
war and betrayal
• Comedy – contained
scenes filled with
slapstick situations
and crude humor
Math, Physics,
and Astronomy
• Euclid, contributions
in geometry
• Archimedes, the
value of pie
• Eratosthenes,
estimated the
circumference of the
earth
Philosophy
“Lovers of Wisdom”
• Socrates, known
through the writings of
his student Plato
• Plato continued the
“Socratic method” of
questioning followed
by the Academy
founded by Socrates
• Aristotle, one of
Plato’s brightest
students, opened his
own school the
Lyceum and was the
teacher of Alexander
the Great
Greek Religion
Polytheistic
• Developed rich set of
myths or traditional
stories about their gods
• Homer, the most famous
of the writers of Greek
mythology
• Attributed human
qualities to their
gods
• Gods lived on
Mount
Olympus
Olympics 776 – 393 BC
• Every four years the Greeks would come to town
of Olympia to compete in Olympic Games
• Competed for the glory of the games
Alexander the Great 356 – 323
BC
Alexander the Great 356 – 323 BC
• Philip II was a brilliant general
and developed the phalanxes,
a group of 16 men across and
16 men deep with 18 foot pikes
• Philip defeated the Greek CityStates in 338 BC
• Son of Philip II of Macedonia,
northern area of Greece
• Philip was assassinated in 336
BC and his son Alexander
became king at the age of 20
Alexander Expands•
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Well prepared to take over,
Alexander had a strong military
and learned background as a
student of Aristotle
334 BC invaded Persia with
35,000 troops and crushed the
Persians
Alexander defeated and conquers
Egypt a Persian territory
Moved back into Persia and
defeated the remainder of King
Darius’ Persian army
Alexander marched east to the
Caspian Sea
Alexander and his army pushed
further east through central Asia
326 BC Alexander and his army
reached the Indus valley
11 years of battle, covering 11,000
miles - Alexander had conquered
what was the known world
In route to return, Alexander was
taken ill and died in Babylon in the
spring of 323 BC at the age of 32
Alexander's Empire
Alexander’s Legacy
• He had adopted Persian dress and customs and
married a Persian woman
• The spread of Greek settlers to the far reaches
of Alexander’s empire created a new culture,
Hellenism
Hellenistic Culture
• Alexandria , Egypt,
became the center of
Hellenistic culture
• The center of trade
and commerce in the
Eastern
Mediterranean
• An international
community of half a
million people
Hellenistic
Culture
• A blend of Greek,
Egyptian, Persian, and
Indian cultures
• Lighthouse called the
Pharos marked the
entrance to Alexandria
• Massive museum and
library in Alexandria
• The library contained
one-half million works a
on papyrus scrolls, the
first true library in the
world
Hellenistic Science and
Technology
• Preserved Greek and Egyptian
works of science and
technology
• Major contributions in
astronomy
• Aristarchus estimated the size
of the sun, proposed
heliocentric theory, that earth
and planets revolve around the
sun
• Ptolemy refuted this and put
earth back in the center of the
universe, geocentric theory
• Eratosthenes calculated the
circumference of the earth
• Euclid discovered geometry
and Pythagorean theorem
• Archimedes correctly
estimated the value of pi
Philosophy
and Art
• Stoicism and Epicureanism
• Stoics founded by Zeno (355 363 BC) believed people
should live virtuous lives in
harmony with will of God and
natural laws
• Epicurus founded philosophy
call Epicureanism, taught that
Gods who ruled the universe
had no interest in humans
• Greatest statue of the ancient
world, the Colossus of Rhodes
was created, over 100 feet
high, later destroyed by an
earthquake in 225 BC